I look forward to not being there. Although I am no longer a Southern Baptist, I do stand in spirit with those protesting outside against sexism and the abuse of women. Southern Baptists are as wrong today about the roles of women as they were 60 years ago defending Jim Crow or 170 years ago defending slavery.

Not being SBC anymore either, I’m never at a meeting this large. Methodists use a representative system for our national meeting so there are just about 1,000 Delegates at the UMC General Conference. So with visitors etc, I bet there are less than a couple of thousand people at our national meetings which only happen, most of the time, every four years.